Scotrenewables SR2000 hits peak power at EMEC

The world’s most powerful tidal turbine has reached full rated power during trials at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.

The SR2000, developed and manufactured by Scottish engineering company Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited, underwent grid connected commissioning works prior to Christmas last year.

The 500 tonne floating turbine was recently re-connected to its subsea cable and began generation and power export to the local Orkney grid.

Since then the turbine has been undergoing a phased testing programme leading to full 2 megawatt (MW) rated export capacity being achieved earlier this month.

Andrew Scott, Scotrenewables’ chief executive officer, said: “We are tremendously excited to have the SR2000 demonstrating the performance and cost advantages of our floating tidal technology, in line with forecasts, whilst delivering new benchmarks within the tidal sector.

“This performance resets the bar for the costs of delivering tidal power. Achieving this industry milestone is a goal the team at Scotrenewables have worked tirelessly towards for a long time - the credit lies with them for these fantastic achievements.”

Neil Kermode, managing director at EMEC said: “We all offer our congratulations to Scotrenewables in reaching peak power on the SR2000.

“This milestone is testament to years of hard work and dedication shown by the Scotrenewables team. It further demonstrates that through dogged, unrelenting innovation, tidal energy is getting ever closer to becoming part of our carbon free energy mix.”

The company is focused on building generation up on the SR2000 over the immediate future and demonstrating its power performance in parallel with its unique low operational costs.

The SR2000 was re-connected to its subsea cable in a low-cost connection operation that took under an hour. All offshore operations have been delivered with small crew transfer vessels or locally based workboats.

Shareholders in the company welcomed the landmark achievement in the turbine’s development.

Simon de Pietro, chief executive officer of DP Energy, said: “This is a significant milestone for Scotrenewables and for tidal energy and we look forward to seeing the deployment of the technology in commercial arrays in the coming years.”

Julien Pouget, senior vice president renewables at Total, said: “For Total, contributing to the development of renewable energies is as much a strategic choice as an industrial responsibility.

“As a shareholder of Scotrenewables Tidal Power Limited we are proud to take part in a project that demonstrates how powerful, utility scale tidal turbines can be deployed and maintained with low cost, locally based vessels towards a step-change cost reduction for the tidal energy sector.”

Scotrenewables founder and director Barry Johnston adde: “After developing the initial concept more than a decade ago, it’s fantastic to now see the latest evolution of the tidal turbine proving it’s low cost power generation capability onsite and connected to the UK national grid.”